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Forums - Politics Discussion - german election on sunday

Mnementh said:
Barozi said:

Well there are a lot of half-baked ideas like:

unconditional basic income (which would cost quite a bit more than the whole state generates in taxes).

abolishing commuting allowance (even though it's not exclusive to cars and would cause people to settle even more in already crowded areas which in turn will cause an increase in housing prices)

Expropriation of housing corporations for billions instead of using that money to create public housing projects.

Withdrawal from NATO.

Immediate coal phase-out (even though the power generated from renewable energy sources are insufficient at the moment and that won't change in the upcoming years. Furthermore, it was the Greens "fault" (SPD as well) to phase-out of nuclear power in the early 2000s. Doing a 360 would cost dozens of billions and take several years until the reactors could substitute coal power plants. And a few years later they will be phased-out again because renewable energy has finally taken over.)

Well that were a few of the more radical ideas. Obviously some points aren't shared by the majority of a party but at least a good portion of it. Others are all too real and are either about to happen (expropriation) or part of a party's manifesto (NATO withdrawal).

It's kinda strange, that in an answer to Rol you put NATO withdrawal as a radical idea. Because Rol is from Austria, and Austria isn't a NATO member. Are Austrians radicals?

Well it was a requirement imposed by the Soviets in order to withdraw their troops from Austrian territory after World War II.

Were the Soviets radical?



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RolStoppable said:
Barozi said:

Well there are a lot of half-baked ideas like:

unconditional basic income (which would cost quite a bit more than the whole state generates in taxes).

abolishing commuting allowance (even though it's not exclusive to cars and would cause people to settle even more in already crowded areas which in turn will cause an increase in housing prices)

Expropriation of housing corporations for billions instead of using that money to create public housing projects.

Withdrawal from NATO.

Immediate coal phase-out (even though the power generated from renewable energy sources are insufficient at the moment and that won't change in the upcoming years. Furthermore, it was the Greens "fault" (SPD as well) to phase-out of nuclear power in the early 2000s. Doing a 360 would cost dozens of billions and take several years until the reactors could substitute coal power plants. And a few years later they will be phased-out again because renewable energy has finally taken over.)

Well that were a few of the more radical ideas. Obviously some points aren't shared by the majority of a party but at least a good portion of it. Others are all too real and are either about to happen (expropriation) or part of a party's manifesto (NATO withdrawal).

Both the SPD and Greens are against all of these ideas as far as I can remember at the moment, so there's hardly a realistic chance for any of these ideas to get pushed through by a very small coalition partner like the Left would be.

Nah not really. On a federal level that might be true but some of that is already happening (or at least being considered) on federal state level, so it's not too outlandish to think that this could happen on federal level.

Also:

"(323) Existenzsichernde Sozialleistungen sollen Schritt für Schritt zusammengeführt und
langfristig soll die Auszahlung in das Steuersystem integriert werden. So schaffen
wir einen transparenten und einfachen sozialen Ausgleich. Verdeckte Armut wird
überwunden. Dabei orientieren wir uns an der Leitidee eines Bedingungslosen
Grundeinkommens."

https://cms.gruene.de/uploads/documents/20200125_Grundsatzprogramm.pdf

Btw. those were just a few examples that I could think of. I didn't check the election manifesto for any of these parties to search for stuff I don't like.

Nuclear power getting phased out is very much a consequence of the accident in Tschernobyl about ten years earlier, similar to how the black-yellow coalition accelerated the outphasing of nuclear power in response to the public reaction to the accident in Fukushima. But it's clear that the CDU likes the narrative of the Greens being to blame for the lack of energy resources when none of this would be a problem if the most recent black-red governments hadn't slowed down the expansion of renewable energy in the last several years.

Any sources for that or at least the reason how the government slowed down the expansion? The problems are found elsewhere.

On federal state level: Long administrative approval processes (several years), wind turbine distance rules and whether power lines should be over- or underground...

example Bavaria: https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/keine-prioritaet-fuer-csu-windkraft-in-bayern-weiter-ohne-schwung,SddHF8o

lawsuits filed by environmental organizations (how ironic) and last but not least residents who don't want them in their area for whatever reason.

Also, what I forgot to address yesterday is your statement that conservative votes account for roughly 50% in Germany. You only get to this figure by including votes for the AfD, but there's a difference between being conservative and being a nutjob. Furthermore, that a coalition without the CDU is possible now is owed to the CDU losing their votes from four years ago to left-leaning parties, not the FDP or AfD on the right side of the political spectrum because those two parties combined are almost exactly at the same value as four years ago. That strongly suggests that many of the people in the center see a need for change, because the SPD and CDU aren't far apart on the political spectrum; I would categorize their overall policies as center-left and center-right, respectively.

Well that's just guesswork at the moment. Here's the graphic from 2017 which clearly shows that AfD and FDP benefitted the most. Yeah it could be a little different this time around but you also fail to acknowledge that more CDU voters die from old age compared to other parties. So they're more likely to lose voters naturally because the demographic is slowly changing. The smaller parties have almost doubled with Free Voters being the strongest currently. Lastly, voter turnout can be an explanation as well.

And lastly, Germany is infamous for its boneheaded federalism, so red-green-red in the government wouldn't have that much of an impact on the individual parts of Germany who do as they see fit anyway. Nobody is getting ignored when the CDU doesn't lead the country as a whole. Well, nobody of the reasonable people I should say; AfD followers are a different breed who have conspiracy theories and warped perceptions of pretty much everything, so life is tough for them as long as the AfD doesn't reach its Endsieg.

I think you underestimate the legislative power of the Bundestag. I recommend reading articles 70-74 of the Basic Law.



As an update, here are the current polls for the election:

InstitutAllensbachKantar
(Emnid)
ForsaForsch’gr.
Wahlen
GMSInfratest
dimap
INSAYougovBundes-
tagswahl
Veröffentl.08.09.202123.09.202124.09.202123.09.202114.09.202116.09.202120.09.202123.09.202124.09.2017
CDU/CSU25 %21 %22 %23 %23 %22 %22 %21 %32,9 %
SPD27 %25 %25 %25 %25 %26 %25 %25 %20,5 %
GRÜNE15,5 %16 %17 %16,5 %16 %15 %15 %14 %8,9 %
FDP9,5 %11 %12 %11 %13 %11 %12 %11 %10,7 %
DIE LINKE6 %7 %6 %6 %6 %6 %6,5 %7 %9,2 %
AfD11 %11 %10 %10 %11 %11 %11 %12 %12,6 %
Sonstige6 %9 %FW 3 %
Son. 5 %
FW 3 %
Son. 5,5 %
6 %FW 3 %
Son. 6 %
8,5 %FW 2 %
Son. 7 %
5,0 %
ErhebungF • 1.258
01.09.–07.09.
T • 1.443
15.09.–21.09.
T • 2.002
20.09.–23.09.
T • 1.273
22.09.–23.09.
T • 1.003
08.09.–13.09.
TOM • 1.512
13.09.–15.09.
O • 2.054
17.09.–20.09.
O • 2.364
16.09.–22.09.

https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/index.htm

Each row is for a party, each column for a pollster. Last column is the result of the last election 2017 as comparison. 'Sonstige' is translated to others, lumping together all the smaller parties. Some pollster ask for free voters, they are listed as FW.



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538 also reports on the election:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/after-nearly-16-years-as-germanys-chancellor-angela-merkel-has-no-clear-successor-in-sundays-election/

Which will happen tomorrow.



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Early indications show in multiple provinces a higher than usual participation. Which usually is a bad sign for the governing party, because activated earlier non-voters aren't often in support of the current government. Especially since they felt the need to vote this time. When in Baden-Württemberg 2011 five million people voted instead of four million, it lead to historic bad results for the CDU and the Greens taking over government.

Last edited by Mnementh - on 26 September 2021

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Mnementh said:

Early indications show in multiple provinces a higher than usual participation. Which usually is a bad sign for the governing party, because activated earlier non-voters aren't often in support of the current government. Especially since they felt the need to vote this time. When in Baden-Württemberg 2011 five million people voted instead of four million, it lead to historic bad results for the CDU and the Greens taking over government.

I actually expected a lower voter turnout.

The turnout already rose by about 5% between 2013 and 2017 which is likely to be attributed to the AfD (for both votes in favour of AfD and against them). There's no new party that could get into Bundestag this time around, whereas in 2017 both the FDP and AfD joined after failing in 2013 by a hair.

Also the candidates don't seem better than last time. Laschet clearly can't mobilize as many voters as Merkel, while Scholz (just as Laschet) is regarded as the guy wanting to continue the great coalition's politics.



Barozi said:
Mnementh said:

Early indications show in multiple provinces a higher than usual participation. Which usually is a bad sign for the governing party, because activated earlier non-voters aren't often in support of the current government. Especially since they felt the need to vote this time. When in Baden-Württemberg 2011 five million people voted instead of four million, it lead to historic bad results for the CDU and the Greens taking over government.

I actually expected a lower voter turnout.

The turnout already rose by about 5% between 2013 and 2017 which is likely to be attributed to the AfD (for both votes in favour of AfD and against them). There's no new party that could get into Bundestag this time around, whereas in 2017 both the FDP and AfD joined after failing in 2013 by a hair.

Also the candidates don't seem better than last time. Laschet clearly can't mobilize as many voters as Merkel, while Scholz (just as Laschet) is regarded as the guy wanting to continue the great coalition's politics.

Well:

https://www.rnd.de/politik/bundestagswahl-2021-in-deutschland-zeichnet-sich-eine-hohe-wahlbeteiligung-ab-ALU54HOJYNHOBE47IVF7Z5EXUA.html

It's not the same everywhere, but some provinces have a higher turnout. But reading into it a bit deeper, that might also because of a higher amount of mail-in votes. So maybe that statement from me was a bit early. We'll see.

On the other hand, for the first time since I vote I was waiting in a line. But maybe that's just me. Or they reorganized stuff and have fewer voting places.

Last edited by Mnementh - on 26 September 2021

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Wow the election forecast is crazy all around.

CDU/CSU a bit better than expected. Everyone else pretty much exactly as the surveys told us.
The Left might not even make it into the Bundestag with 5%.
Everything else is so close that some coalitions aren't possible any more depending on which forecast you look (like red-green-red).


On a federal state level: Huge wins for the Greens in Berlin. Infact they're the biggest party now, so the future mayor might be from the Green party. AfD with huge losses.



As a closer look what Barozi is talking about, here are the current forecasts for the outcome of the election:

Uhrzeit Institut CDU/CSU SPD AfD FDP LIN GRÜ FW SSW Son CDU/CSU SPD AfD FDP LIN GRÜ SSW Gesamt
  32,9 % 20,5 % 12,6 % 10,7 % 9,2 % 8,9 % 1,0 % 4,0 % 246 153 94 80 69 67 709
18:00 Infratest 25,0 % 25,0 % 11,0 % 11,0 % 5,0 % 15,0 % 8,0 % 200 197 87 87 39 119 1 730
18:00 Fgr. Wahlen 24,0 % 26,0 % 10,0 % 12,0 % 5,0 % 14,5 % 8,5 % 198 215 83 99 41 120 721
18:00 Fgr. Wahlen 200 217 83 100 121 721
18:43 Infratest 24,7 % 24,9 % 11,3 % 11,2 % 5,0 % 14,8 % 8,1 % 198 197 89 88 40 117 1 730
18:45 Fgr. Wahlen 24,2 % 25,8 % 10,1 % 11,8 % 5,0 % 14,7 % 8,4 % 200 213 83 98 41 121 756
19:00 Fgr. Wahlen 24,4 % 25,6 % 10,3 % 11,6 % 5,0 % 14,7 % 8,4 % 202 211 85 96 41 121 756
19:14 Infratest 24,7 % 24,9 % 11,1 % 11,7 % 5,0 % 14,6 % 8,0 % 198 197 88 92 39 115 1 730
19:31 Fgr. Wahlen 24,6 % 25,7 % 10,7 % 11,7 % 5,0 % 14,4 % 7,9 % 198 206 86 94 40 116 740

https://www.wahlrecht.de/news/2021/bundestagswahl-2021.html#prognosen-hochrechnungen

As an explanation, the percentages are the vote shares, the second part are the projected seats in the parliament. The topmost row is the last election. Ah yes, and SSW is a party representing a minority, which is why they may be excluded from the 5% barrier and can have a seat once they arrive at enough votes for one.

CDU/CSU was expected to be around 20%, so they are actually stronger than expected. Which also means that the current government coalition consisting of CDU/CSU and SPD might be able to continue to govern, but with that result with the SPD as the leading party. That is, if they want to do that.

Last edited by Mnementh - on 26 September 2021

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10 years greatest game event!

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Kinda disappointed that we won't see SPD, Grüne and Linke in the government. Either FDP or CDU/CSU will make it in some form, in the worst case both of them. So for the moment I hope that Die Grünen won't form a coalition with those two parties.

As for me, I voted the party Die PARTEI, as always.



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